Captive Surrender Read Free

fought to keep his approval off his face
while he had watched her throw all of her visitors darkly sinister
looks, and had silently encouraged her not to show any sign of
weakness in front of Levant. To his relief, she hadn’t, and, if
Levant’s grumbling was anything to go by, she had managed to get
the better of the oaf.
    Prudence. She really was
rather beautiful, with a mop of dark brown curly hair above an
almond shaped face that embraced rosy cheeks and the most beautiful
pair of emerald eyes he had ever witnessed in his life. He would
remember her eyes forever more; they were framed by the thickest,
and longest, lashes he had ever seen on any woman, and gave her a
sensual look that made him wonder what she looked like first thing
in the morning. With her rosebud lips and slender figure, she was a
sight that had been created for a man’s delectation. From the look
of her equally beautiful sisters, stunning good looks seemed to be
a family trait. It irked him to think that they had no father
figure in residence to give them the protection they deserved until
they married. Women like the Freestone sisters deserved to have men
in their lives who would provide for them, make them smile, and
ensure they were well loved.
    Stephen gave Prudence one
last measured look just as the first smattering of raindrops began
to fall. Unsurprisingly, she ignored them and continued to dig. He
shook his head and wondered what had brought the family to live in
such a remote location, all by themselves, without a man in the
house.
    He knew from having
overheard Levant discuss the family with Charles Taylor, his man of
business, that there were five sisters in total and one brother.
Prudence was the eldest at four and twenty, followed by Eloisa,
Margaret ‘Maggie’, Georgiana, Madeline, and a younger brother
Robert, otherwise known locally as ‘Robbie’. Their mother, Agatha,
had recently been unwell and was rarely seen around and about the
small village of Marchwell. Instead, the family seemed to do most
of their trading in the nearby larger town of Brumpton
Marches.
    Although neither Taylor,
nor Levant, had ever raised issue with it, Stephen couldn’t help
but wonder why the family would walk the additional four miles to
the larger town when they could purchase everything they needed
from the nearby village that was only a mile or so away. It didn’t
make sense and was something he made a mental note to look into
when he got the time.
    “ What do you
want to do about them now, boss?” Humphrey asked when Levant showed
no inclination to stop grumbling about female
stubbornness.
    “ I think that
it is time to increase the heat on the ladies a little, don’t
you?”
    “ Do you want
me to pay them a call?” Humphries small round eyes lit with
enthusiasm that was immediately quashed with Ludwig’s loud
sigh.
    “ Of course I
don’t want you to pay them a call,” Levant snarled. “What do you
plan to do, rough them up a little? We would have every magistrate
within a hundred miles banging on the door, you idiot,” Levant
snarled. “No, leave this one to me. I am going to get that woman to
sell me that house, and the blasted grounds, or my name is not
Ludwig Levant.”
    Stephen snorted and shook
his head. He knew that Ludwig Levant wasn’t the man’s real name,
although why Charles Rochester Kempton would want to willingly
change his identity to such a ridiculous name as Ludwig, heaven
only knew. Stephen glanced at bumbling Humphrey and, not for the
first time, wondered if the man had all of his marbles in one
place. Although he was good with his fists; he had hands the size
of dinner plates, he only seemed able to operate under direct,
clear and precise instruction. He was hardly the kind of man the
French would want to enlist to their cause, and that was the reason
why Stephen was there.
    Several months earlier,
he had been tasked with finding out if there was any link between
the mysterious Charles Kempton, aka Ludwig